


Outsiders

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Marvel, Marvel 616, X-Men - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 12:03:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2811290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pietro watches Kitty Pryde play with some of the children of X-Mansion, and it doesn't make him feel better about his own situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Outsiders

The X-Factor is at the Xavier Institute for the time being; Lorna is giving a speech to the kids about... Something. Pietro doubts he'd approve if he did know, as it's likely to do with corporate sponsorship, but what can he say? He _is_ on a corporate team, after all.

Pietro is in one of the living rooms, not listening to Ororo Munroe and Hank McCoy talking with Remy; it's a mess of slow sounds, and though he can understand if he concentrates, he has no wish to try. Cypher, Warlock and Danger are elsewhere, but Pietro doesn't really care, in honesty: he is watching Kitty Pryde with a table of toys and some younger mutants all about her.

They can't be very old, all about eight or nine, and they're watching with delight as she plays with the toys, making them pass through the table and each other. Kitty grasps at one of their hands and suddenly the young thing can delightedly put his hand through the little series of small figurines, laughing.

Pietro frowns slightly, because even as he watches it's in slow motion.

He could slow himself down. No one realizes he can do that – no one realizes he's _constantly_ doing that, but he doesn't want to.

It puts a weight on his chest whenever he does it, forcing his body to move _wrong_ , forcing his tongue to move as slowly as everyone else's; it's _unnatural_ , but it's completely necessary if he wants to so much as communicate.

Kitty lifts one of them, a girl that looks more a tiger cub than a child – so slowly, slowly. Pietro is reminded of the way Crystal had lifted Luna when she had been but a very small babe in arms; Kitty and the girl with yellow eyes and whiskers both laugh when the child's feet pass through the teacher's belly.

Kitty Pryde can share _her_ power.

By all rights, she should be an outsider as much as Pietro is, on a different level, of a different form, but she isn't; she can pull people to join her, much to their delight.

Pietro thinks of when his powers had first activated, seven years old with a body suddenly going so much _faster_ than everyone else's, a brain moving too quickly and a tongue that needed to be slowed for his sister to understand it; he remembers grasping at Wanda's hand and pointing up at the sky when it had begun to rain.

The drops had been fat and round, falling so _beautifully_ and shining in the dim light from the sun that filtered through the clouds.

It had taken her _so long_ to turn her head as the drops fell down and down and say, in a voice thick and low with slowed distortion, “What is it, Pietro? It's only _rain_.”

He hadn't spoken to Wanda for three days after that, though he never told her why.

Hank McCoy knows.

Hank is glancing at Pietro every three or four seconds, though no one else cares for his presence on his own, and he likely forgets that Pietro can see that fleeting look. Hank McCoy understands that Pietro's body is on a different time stream to everyone else, that Pietro's _brain_ is moving faster than everyone else's, that Pietro is trapped on a world in slow-motion and he can't put himself at that speed unless he concentrates and _aches_.

Hank can smell when he goes slow and when he goes fast, even if he can't see Pietro or perceive him properly. Logan can't do that, but that's not a shame – Hank McCoy has always been a better man than Logan has.

One of the children is moving towards him, and he feels trapped, claustrophobic, and every breath is a plague on his lungs as he forces his body to slow down. He _hates_ conversation. “Mister Maximoff?” She asks. It's not as distorted, but the edges are slow.

“Yes, child?” Pietro softens his tone and tries to flatten the furrow from his brow: he never realizes how much he scowls until he's forced to pay attention to it.

“Ms Pryde says you light the menorah too.” She points at the candles on a table to the side. Kitty Pryde is smiling as she watches. He feels a surge of utter _hatred_ , and it's laced with a bitterness that clings to his tongue.

“Ms Pryde is mistaken.” Pietro says bluntly, because he has not lit a menorah for a decade, not since he and Wanda were still in their father's ranks. The girl's face drops. Flowers burst from her neck to her cheeks; snowbells. “Come, child, let me show you something.”

Pietro flickers across the room and pilfers a card from Remy LeBeau's pocket; he does not notice, because Pietro moves too fast. No one ever notices.

He crouches and holds the card for her, and he smiles, not because he feels like smiling but because children like for adults to smile. “Watch closely.” Pietro says, a soft imperative, and he holds the card flat in his hands, plainly in her sight. Then he speeds and hides it in Kitty's pocket before returning to his position.

“It's gone!” She squeals with an obscene delight. This time Pietro's smile is honest. “Where'd it go!?”

“Ask your teacher.” Pietro says, and the flower girl turns, daisies and forget-me-nots bursting brightly from her hair.

“Ms Pryde?”

“Well, I don't have-” Kitty's hand has gone absent-mindedly to her own pocket, and she laughs, producing the card. She shakes her head at Pietro. The girl runs to grasp at the card, and Pietro stands up straight, leaning against the wall again and letting _speed_ come back to him.

He relaxes, breath coming into his lungs without the taint of sedate movement, and for a moment he closes his eyes. The children move to play on their own, and Kitty Pryde begins to walk towards him.

He can't stand the thought of more idle chatter, not now. He wants to go and run somewhere, run for long enough that he gets a burst of endorphins and stops hating the people around him for making him go at their pathetic pace.

Kitty Pryde isn't even a quarter of the way across the room. Pietro wishes he could grasp her hand, grasp _anyone's_ hand, and show them how slow the world is, but he does not have that luxury.

Pietro flickers from her sight and out into the mansion's grounds before she even reaches half the distance.


End file.
